Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Save System
by Sloth45
Summary: In which Harry discovers a save-system when it autosaves upon finding the correct wand. He's very new to being a wizard... But, after he figures it out, maybe having a few extra chances might help.
1. Chapter 1

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Save System, Prologue:

Harry took the wand. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls.

He was tangentially aware of the fact that Hagrid was clapping, obviously very excited from him, and Olivander was also praising him in a very polite sort of way, but he hardly noticed, too busy staring at the sudden translucent blue text window that had appeared in front of his face. It said, in large, friendly letters:

 **AUTOSAVE ENABLED. AUTOSAVING…**

He hesitated, and then carefully reached forward to poke at the air with his wand, since the wand seemed to be… involved, somehow. He ignored the looks the two adults were giving him as the window disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

...What?

* * *

Harry flopped back on his brand new bed. It just didn't make sense.

He'd checked the wizarding books he'd gotten on his list… There was no mention of 'autosaves' there, despite the term sounding… very, very vaguely familiar. He'd be hesitant to ask Hagrid, since… Well, Hagrid gave him a weird look when he pressed 'okay' in the save-window-thing, and adults had generally not been very helpful in his life.

His life was definitely turning around, though… In addition to the whole being-a-wizard thing, his aunt and uncle had let him move into Dudley's second room, the one where he kept all his broken toys. Maybe…

He dug around through the discarded and broken toys. No, no, no… It took quite a while to sort through it all, but Harry was nothing if not determined, and he had a vague idea of what he was looking for, not that Dudley had organized in any discernible way… Yes, here it was. Dudley had a Nintendo, which had 8 bits, whatever they were. Unfortunately, he'd broken the controllers, and their wires were snapped. That wasn't what Harry was looking for, even if he had seen a 'repairing charm' in his textbook that looked interesting. No, what he was looking for were the game manuals, which had been dumped nearby.

The manuals were untouched, naturally… Dudley would have no need to read things when trying to play video games. None of them had a save system like he did, but he read enough of them to get a vague idea. There was usually a menu that came up when you hit the button, and you could save from there, right?

"Uh… Save," he tried, whispering to himself in case the Dursley's heard.

The light blue window from before popped up again, virtually identical, save for the fact that it's text was different. This time, it read:

 **SAVE 1 SAVED**

That was… Something. It wasn't the 'autosave', though, which meant Harry had to keep looking, so he pressed the **OKAY** button and looked down at the various manuals laid out across the floor.

"Hm… Save _s_?" he tried, stressing the S to make sure he was trying to access more then one save. This time, a different screen came up… There was an auto-save that could be updated, and a manual save. There were 7 save slots, it seemed, but only the first was available- The rest were all grayed out, reading things like " **UNLOCKED AT YEAR 2** ", or " **UNLOCKED AT YEAR 3** ", and so on, whatever that meant. He was given the option to load. Did that mean… He tentatively poked the menu's load button, the two-dimensional text book being pushed back by his finger with zero resistance, like pressing air.

Nothing happened.

Harry squinted, and pulled his finger off the button-

"Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well ... how curious ... how very curious ..."

Harry jerked a little. He was- He was back in the wand shop. Holding his wand alight, watching the red and gold sparks slowly drift down through the air. He was… Back to the autosave. Back to the point in the day when the autosave popped up and saved, anyway. Did he travel back through time?

Hagrid and Ollivander were looking a little concerned that he'd stopped responding. Well, he certainly didn't want to do all of his shopping again… The save window, wherever it came from, at least seemed to function. Could all wizards do this? It seemed like an incredible power…

As much as he'd love to poke at the air, he had a thought. The save-system (According to those manuals he read) had saved to a **SAVE 1** when he said the word, so…

"Erm… Load Save 1?"

He was suddenly back in Dudley's spare room. He was just… Standing there. Like he hadn't moved.

This was _weird._

He slumped down on the mattress. He'd have time to explore more about it tomorrow…

By the time he woke up tomorrow, it turns out his decision to put it off was justified, because just after he sat up in bed…

 **AUTOSAVING…**

Time for a brand new day.


	2. Chapter 2

**AUTOSAVING…**

A brand new day. Harry stretched out, yawning.

Life since he got his Hogwarts letter was… Strange. Life since he got his wand was stranger.

He had a month left with the Dursleys, and while they no longer shut him in his cupboard, or shouted at him to do things, they were still obviously angry at him- Angry and scared at the same time. They seemed to prefer to pretend he wasn't there. This was, all told, a massive improvement.

Another massive improvement was his ability to Save, limited as it apparently was to just the two different kinds of saves. He'd learned a few things as the month passed… When he loaded a save, he was right back in that moment when he either used a manual save, or at the latest autosave… And the autosave could be manually updated.

If he went back to a manual save that was before the next autosave 'checkpoint', whatever those were (So far, they seemed to be mornings), it would autosave at the appropriate time, 'overwriting' the previous save with whatever it was he'd been doing since the manual load.

Save systems were weird. Harry wasn't sure how Dudley had wrapped his head around video games. At least Harry had figured out he could just… Will himself to Save and Load without saying it out loud, or poking at menu screens. That had been nice.

He'd also learned that things didn't carry over between saves… Any items he'd picked up or lost were irrelevant, since he only had what he had when he saved when he reloaded. It was nice to sneak some food away from the Dursleys, but he was still hungry if he had to reload for some reason. He could save just before he'd eaten if he really wanted to eat again and again, though…

And he could sneak food from the Dursley's now. Actually, he could do all sorts of things. His injuries would be undone by loading (Though he imagined any healing would be undone, too), and nobody else seemed to remember a thing. He was still just an eleven year old boy, but… Now he was an eleven year old boy with seemingly unlimited re-dos.

First, it was just small things. It was nice to be able to pig out even more then Dudley did, by saving and loading over and over, but in the end Harry just wasn't enough of a glutton to really want to keep doing that, aside to sate his hunger, which reloading didn't help with.

Then, came revenge. The Dursleys had done a lot of bad things to him, before… Locking him in his cupboard under the stairs for a week at a time, denying him food or water, working him to exhaustion, punishing him for no reason… It started off with little pranks, here and there, but as he grew bolder, realizing they wouldn't remember anything, that he could get away with anything in the world, he tried violence, just like Dudley did.

He hated it.

He didn't like his aunt and uncle much, or Dudley, but… After the first rush of anger, he didn't like hurting them. Didn't like hurting people. It made him feel wrong. He had no idea why Dudley enjoyed Harry Hunting… Preying on the same person time after time wasn't fun at all, and it took Harry barely any reloads at all to give up on the concept.

After that… There was magic. Harry needed that special something, that wonderment, that… Magic, something to keep him busy from the gross feeling of trying to be so hateful towards someone.

Unfortunately, he got a letter the first night he tried it, about 'underage magic'. Calming looking it over, Harry guessed it made sense… If it had been, say, Dudley who had magic, he certainly wouldn't want him running around putting pig-tails on people all willy-nilly.

Fortunately, he could reload. So, he did.

Magic was fascinating. There were all kinds of spells he could learn. There was only so much he could do… After he started casting the first spells, the warning letter showed up. If he kept trying, some adult wizards would show up, all business-like, and Harry knew they were bad news, so he had to reload. It was too much of a pain to learn magic like this… But it was a nice sneak-peek. He'd be able to learn magic at Hogwarts freely, as far as he could tell, so he could wait.

Aside from that… Harry was quickly starting to realize he was getting bored. Being able to do everything without taking any time- Or, at least, being able to undo everything to do more in the same time- Left him with the ability to explore all sorts of things, but also left him with nothing interesting to do once he started letting time progress again.

At least he had some company now, besides the Dursleys, even if she couldn't remember anything between reloads, either.

He'd bonded with Headwig a lot, as the month inched by so very slowly. That was the name he'd given to the snowy owl he'd received while shopping for wizard stuff. It was a very dignified sort of name, and she was a very dignified sort of owl.

Strangely, while she didn't seem to remember anything after he reloaded- Which was to say, she hooted and shook her head in negative-answer sorts of ways when he asked her things- She did seem to be growing just a little closer with him as he grew closer to her. It was a little weird, to be honest, given how he mostly bonded with her days that he undid.

Finally, it was time to go. It was surprisingly easy to convince his uncle to take him to the station where he would leave for Hogwarts… But once he got there, things weren't quite as good, as there was no 'Platform Nine and three quarters' there. Mr. Dursley had a very nasty smile indeed when he abandoned Harry there.

Harry, for his part… shrugged. He had time to look around…

 **SAVE 1 SAVED**


	3. Chapter 3

**SAVE 1 LOADED**

Well, this had worked out fairly well for him.

He'd looked around… There was no hurry for him, as he could just reload, and so he watched around. He noticed that some wizards (For they must be, as they had huge trunks like he did, and owls in cages) were loitering around a certain area...Until they slipped right through the wall there.

That saved him from having to go ask around… He could have, of course, but he was starting to enjoy puzzling things out, now that he had all the time he needed to think, and didn't have to worry about a vigorous game of Harry Hunting from Dudley and being locked in his cupboard from Uncle Vernon if he got better grades then his cousin. He stepped through the barrier-

 **AUTOSAVING…**

...Okay then. He took note, as this was apparently a check-point… Which made sense, as he was about to set off on his grand adventure to a magical school. That sounded vaguely like something in Dudley's game manuals.

As it turned out, though, actually getting his trunk off his trolley and onto the train was another matter… Thankfully, a set of ginger twins he'd seen earlier were passing by, and helped him get the trunk into place, for which he was thankful.

Unfortunately, they found out about his scar when he absently wiped his forehead after trying to lift his trunk, which had brushed his messy hair out of the way. He wasn't very fond of his fame… He was still getting used to it.

He could have ignored that, but a few minutes later, another one- A brother, not a twin, but with that same shade of red hair- Came along and introduced himself, and promptly asked if Harry remembered his parents being murdered. And after that, a girl came by, asking about a toad, who soon told him he was in all kinds of books that she'd read, and started asking questions…

He took a deep breath.

 **AUTOSAVE LOADED**

If he couldn't save, he would have just had to deal with it and pretend it didn't bother him.

But he could. So he didn't.

He was helped onto the train with his trunk again by the twins, but made sure not to reveal his scar. He happily chatted away with Ron when he reappeared- When he wasn't gawking at his scar, and asking rude questions, he was actually pretty interesting… Harry wanted to know all about what it was like to grow up as a wizard, and Ron seemed interested in hearing that he was muggleborn, mentioning his dad loved things like the veetee and the yelly-tone.

Soon enough, the girl appeared- Hermione Granger. "Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one."

As it so happened, Neville had, in fact, been by and informed them of this… But, now that he thought about it, he had an idea.

 **SAVE 1 SAVED**

He followed along after her, looking for the toad- Not something he'd actually thought to do before. He'd actually been up by the front of the train, for some reason… He must have been pretty fast for a toad. And now, all he had to do… 

**SAVE 1 LOADED**

"-7 cars that way, hiding in the dark corner under the seat." he answered. Hermione and Ron both gave him weird looks. "What?" she asked, looking confused. "Trevor. Neville's toad. That's where he is," he replied, idly picking up one of his textbooks to thumb through. He'd already read them all, of course, but it suddenly felt a lot more awkward with them staring at him like that. She raised a finger to object, seemed to think better of it, and huffed. "I'm… Going to go check that. Wait right here," she told him, stalking off the way he pointed.

"Blimey, where does she get off being so bossy," mumbled Ron. Harry had to agree… She was a little bossy. It had indulged his curiosity in seeing if he could reload to avoid having to do things like this, so he didn't mind too much, though. "How'd you know that, by the way?"

Harry thought about it. There really was just one reasonably explanation. "Oh, it's magic."

Ron stared at him for a moment, but then slowly nodded… Then nodded fully as he seemed to accept that without question. "Right, that makes sense." The red-haired boy opened his mouth to speak again, but it was at that point Hermione came back. "I can't believe it… He was exactly where you said," she said, half surprised, half accusingly.

Harry, for his part, shrugged. "Maybe toads like the dark," he mused. Did they? He didn't know. Trevor was just resting when he found him the first time. Hermione squinted at him in response.

"How did you know where he was, anyway?" she asked, crossing her arms. Harry looked at Ron for an explanation, who had to think for a moment before he got the point. Ron looked directly at the other muggleborn. "It's magic," he stated proudly, grinning. Harry gave him a little fist-bump.

"Magic?" she parroted back. "You can't just say it's magic, there are different kinds of magic… Wait, did you use divination? But all the books I've read told me divination wasn't a reliable magic..." she muttered to herself. "I have to go read up on this… Don't think you'll get to avoid answering me on this, mister!" she called back to him as she spun around and headed back to her own carriage, wherever it was, presumably with all her books.

Harry tilted his head. Huh… She actually seemed more cheerful and less bossy, then. Like she enjoyed being given a research topic. Ron was looking at him with puzzlement at the girl's behavior, and Harry just shrugged at him. He didn't understand girls, either.

He stood up, and-

 **AUTOSAVING…**

-paused as he apparently hit another checkpoint. That only happened then things were about to happen, he was starting to realize. At that point, the door slid open once more, and a platinum-blonde boy slid in, flanked by two people who looked like they'd very much get along with Dudley. Harry vaguely recognized him from his day out shopping… He was in the robes store, if he recalled.

"I can't find Harry Potter **anywhere** , and this is the last car. Is he in here?" he demanded, looking cross. Ron glanced at Harry, who had only introduced himself by his first name. "Nope."

Harry happened to agree. "Nope… Definitely no Harry Potter in here," he lied blandly. "I'm just Harry, and this is Ron."

The rather rude boy looked suspicious. "I know who the blood-traitor is," he huffed, crossing his arms. There was a vague resemblance to another bossy person he'd met earlier, when he did that, but he'd never tell Hermione about it. "But Harry Potter should be eleven this year, so obviously he's going to Hogwarts, so he has to be here. I've checked everywhere else."

Harry was liking him less and less… Whatever his name was. Ron looked highly offended, so he tried to keep moving. "Er… Perhaps he didn't take the train. What do you think, Ron? Are there other methods of getting to Hogwarts?"

Ron blinked, not expecting the sudden change from insulting his family to magical transportation. "Ah… Well, there's brooms, portkeys… Apparition… Mum hates Apparition," he mused, before their 'guest' interupted.

"I highly doubt Harry Potter is flying to Hogwarts on a _broom_ ," he sneered. He was pretty good at sneers, Harry noted. Harry just clapped Ron on the back, who started a little.

"Well," Harry started, "Then maybe he took a portkey. Isn't that right, Ron?"

The redhead looked vaguely uncomfortable. "Wh- Uh, sure. I mean, I guess he _could_ have," he agreed.

Silvery-Blond looked frustrated. "Well, I'm not going to find him standing around arguing with a blood traitor, and some mudblood," he declared, before tromping off, taking his goons with him.

Harry looked to Ron, nonplussed. "So… Who was that, and what do all of those words mean?


	4. Chapter 4

The sorting was interesting.

Apparently, all one had to do to be sorted into one of the four houses was to put on an old hat. This came as quite a relief to Ron, who had thought there was going to be a far more strenuous test involving troll wrestling, due to his brothers advice.

Even better then that, the old hat was actually able to sing- And sing it did, to thunderous applause. Harry was starting to get used to the fact that things like this just _happened_ in the wizarding world, where hats could thing and "It's Magic" was an acceptable answer to a surprising number of inquiries.

Harry had been curious, and as people were being called away to try on the hat one at a time, in alphabetical order, he had plenty of time to think. It certainly didn't cost him anything to try, so…

"Potter, Harry!"

There were murmurs and whispers from all around. He glanced at Draco, who looked furious, and couldn't help but smile a bit… Actually, pranking him like that had been kind of fun. Ron had mentioned on the train all about him and his family… Not good things. But, that didn't matter right now.

 **SAVE 1 SAVED**

He stepped out to the wooden stool, and placed the hat on his head. As he did, he heard a small voice in his ear- That of the hat, much quieter then before.

"Let's see what we have here," whispered the hat. "Oh, my… I can't say I've ever seen anything like this before, Mr. Potter, but I'm afraid it's not going to work."

"What?" asked Harry, bemused, glancing up at the hat upon his head. Maybe he should invest in a hat… His scar tended to draw a lot of attention he wasn't too fond of.

"I can see you're planning to reload just to see if I'll put you somewhere different, so you can check to see if you'll get your pick of the houses," replied the hat.

Harry found himself quite alarmed. A hat that could read his thoughts? "Well, I hope you don't mind if I test that..." he offered to the hat, in his mind… Because, well, there was no way the hat could actually _stop_ him, but it wouldn't do to be rude.

 **SAVE 1 LOADED**

He stepped out to the wooden stool, and placed the hat on his head… Again. This time, the hat looked faintly cross, the tear in it that acted as a mouth frowning most distinctly. "I told you that wouldn't work," it grumbled in his mind, and Harry crossed his arms with a huff.

"I was curious," he grumbled, with what was most definitely not a pout. The hat just seemed amused, as his tone changed to reflect that.

"You were… And you make me so very tempted to put you in Ravenclaw, and not let you argue for your insolence," the hat chided him. At this, Harry was very alarmed. What? He'd gotten quite used to things going his way, with his ability to reload… But he had just discovered this that this hat remembered everything he did, and so he couldn't try again!

At least he was lucky it was just a hat, and that wizards couldn't read minds or something.

"And… What if I just kept reloading until you got bored and put me where I wanted?" he asked, vaguely hopeful. The hat huffed quietly.

"I would say that would be a cunning plan if I wasn't aware of it, but a stupid one since I am. Not that it would have helped if you didn't tell me, as I could see you thinking it."

Harry could see people looking at him funny, since he'd taken so long to sort. Well, he could fix that-

 **SAVE 1 LOADED**

He stepped out to the wooden stool, and placed the hat on his head. This time, he focused on 'remembering' about how the Hat had sorted him into Gryffindor. Ron had mentioned he was going there, and Hermione had mentioned it was the best house, because Albus Dumbledore had been in it.

Hermione seemed a little bossy, but it's not like Harry had any preference. So, why NOT go to the best house?

"Nope," answered the hat. "But that was daring, and you do have some nerve… Fine, just don't make me re-sort you into Ravenclaw later," the hat grumbled. "GRYFFINDOR!" it called out to the rest of the hall.

 **AUTOSAVING...**

Harry walked back to his seat, deep in contemplation. Back at the Dursleys… He could try anything he wanted, and just reload if he didn't like what he'd gotten. Finding someone who remembered his reloads was something of a shock… He hoped there wouldn't be more magical artifacts like that.

A magical thing he did approve of was his golden plate, back at his seat along the huge table, which filled itself with food after the sorting was completed. Wizard food was weird, but tasty.

He also wondered halfway through the meal while he didn't get an Autosave before the sorting. Was he not supposed to reload, there? It did after, though. Harry still didn't quite understand how that worked, or when.

After the feast, there was a school song that Harry elected not to participate in (He wasn't exactly encouraged to participate in things, before Hogwarts), and then they shuffled off to their respective common-rooms, himself and the other Gryffindor first years being led by yet another of Ron's siblings.

Harry didn't have anything against them, but he was certainly starting to wonder how many of them there were… The red hair was very much a give-away. Percy (For that was his name) was a Prefect, and he mentioned the password to get into the tower was, apparently, _Caput Draconis_. Harry had seen a dragon in Gringotts, and had no idea what sort of thing would be required to make one go caput.

It was at this point, he had to go to bed- It had been a long day, longer for him then anyone else. Reloading put him right back where he was… Any rest he may have gotten before he reloaded wouldn't help if he loaded back into a stressful time, for example. On the plus side, that meant he could save when he was fresh, and reload back to that freshness…

He could have mused more about the nature of such things, but soon he was simply too tired to think anymore, and went to bed.


End file.
